As gravity brings the rocket back down, friction with the air slows the descent. Each rocket was packed with a parachute. The engine's last act is to blast the nose of the rocket off, freeing the chute.

"In our case, the parachute is slowing the fall," Miller said.

The parachutes dramatically increase drag and allow the rockets, in many cases, to fall slowly enough that students can safely catch them - if they can reach the landing point in time.

Force, mass, acceleration

The Second Law states the relationship between force, mass and acceleration - force equals mass times acceleration.

Some students prefer small rockets. Some go for large rockets. The size plays a major role in how high the rockets will get. The engines provide the same force, so a rocket with a larger mass will have a lower acceleration.

"The lighter the rocket, the higher it can be launched," Science Teacher Carolyn Yurick said.

The students used three sizes of engines - A, B, and C, with C engines the strongest - at the launch. "The greater the impulse of an engine the higher it can send a rocket," Yurick said.

An A engine can launch a standard rocket as high as 400 feet. Rockets with B engines can rise to 800 feet, and a C engine can take its vessel to 1,600 feet.

The 172 students on the two teams - Blue and White - were broken up into. Altogether, there were 127 launches. One rocket reportedly exploded. Some launches ended in unrecoverable rockets. A team's launch day is usually over when the wind carries their rocket into a tree or the Conewango Creek.

On the White Team, the Gaga Monsters' rocket reached a top speed of 76 miles per hour and flew upward for 3.56 seconds before reaching its apex. The rockets of teams Boom and Pudding Patrol each attained speeds of 70 miles per hour.

The Blue team pushed the envelope with a top speed of 79 miles per hour to 3.82 seconds by the Speed of Lights; and two 75-mile per hour shots, one by Awesome Ninja Chicks and the other by Post Apocalyptic Owls.

Team NA(17) Batman touched the sky with a C engine that took their rocket to a speed of 70 miles per hour. The rocket did not begin its return to earth for 6.84 seconds.

Equal and opposite reaction

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

There are several examples of this in the rocketry, but there are two very basic to the work.

The engine fires downward - the rocket goes upward.

And, "when the rocket goes up into the air, eventually it has to fall the same distance," McAvoy said.